Ubiquitous Computing Visions Jason I. Hong jasonh at cs cmu edu

Original Ubicomp Vision Tabs, Pads, Boards 1991, few years after Mac –Before MS Windows, GPS, cell phones, and web took off

Original Ubicomp Vision Main Points Push tech into the physical world –New devices leveraging familiar metaphors Push tech into the background, invisible –Analogy to literacy Artificial intelligence not needed Location sensing can be very powerful –Automatic diary, auto door open, call forwarding Lots of very cheap displays (inch, foot, yard) –Lots of new interaction techniques –Waving, writing, walking into rooms

Original Ubicomp Vision Some Critiques Cost –Very expensive infrastructure –Cheaper, intermediate forms of ubicomp? How do things get pushed into background? –Sort of assumes it will just happen Understandability –How to design so people can use things? –What is active? What isn’t? Too optimistic? –Viruses? Phishing? Hackers? –Will anytime access to info help or exacerbate overload?

Vinge is well-known sci-fi writer –Story set in year 2020 –Like a low-fidelity prototype –Has to be somewhat plausible vision of future Some interesting points –How Google, Ebay, FedEx used in future –Not real cyborgs, but close to it Real-time Google –Information overlays on top of real world Pipes, nav arrows, online games in world –Other services Real-world Tivo, Friends of Privacy, Silent Messaging Synthetic Serendipity

Will wearable computers take off? Will this make everyone into INTJ personality type? Will it be harder to differentiate “reality”? –Live in “reality” or a world we created? –A Matrix of our own making? Cost –15 years between now and then –Moore’s law enough? How to get things out there? Synthetic Serendipity Some Critiques of Ubicomp

We will reach a point where the combination of powerful processors, limitless data-storage capacity, ubiquitous sensor networks, and deeply embedded user interfaces will create a bond between human and machine “so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.” - Vernor Vinge Another Vision of Ubicomp